


Oh Im afraid Ms Blackwood that I am the only one allowed to traumatise Martin

by HissHex



Series: NaNoWriMo 2020 - A TMA Collection [6]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Homophobic Language, Martin's mother being generally awful, Mentioned Lonelyeyes, fatphobia, implied child neglect, incorrectly assuming a sugar baby relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:33:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27405847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HissHex/pseuds/HissHex
Summary: Peter loved funerals and couldn't resist joining Martin on a little trip.Unfortuantely, Martin's mother is still alive (for now) and has strong opinions on what she thinks the relationship between them is.
Series: NaNoWriMo 2020 - A TMA Collection [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1995427
Comments: 2
Kudos: 64





	Oh Im afraid Ms Blackwood that I am the only one allowed to traumatise Martin

**Author's Note:**

> oh? Have I projected my relation with my mother onto Martin again? Who could have guessed?

Martin sighed as she hung up on him again. Despite Elias’s revelations, he still loved his mother,  still called her each Friday. Still used a significant chunk of his pay check on her nursing home. 

He didn’t ask to visit her anymore.

Not that he was going to have a choice. Some cousin he’d never met had passed away and apparently he had to go  to the funeral.

She had been quite insistent that he had to pick her up despite his protests that he didn’t have a car. Why would he? He lived and worked in central London.

Tossing his phone onto his new desk, Martin dropped his head to the lacquered wood with a harsh thud that didn’t make his persistent headache from working with possibly the most annoying man in the world any better. As he considered if joining the Forsaken automatically made you insufferable, everything became ever so slightly quieter.

Talk of the devil.

The hair on his arms stood up as he shivered from the cold fog that brushed behind him.  He didn’t bother raising his head, if Peter wants politeness he can act like anyone else and knock on the damn door instead of just appearing in his office. 

“Hello Peter” His words were muffled by his arms and the cold wood. Peter’s usual jovial tone did not appear to diminish from Martin’s dismissive greeting. 

“Hello Martin! I could not help but over hear-” “Of course you couldn’t” “- that you have had an unfortunate loss.”

That would be the sort of thing to have Peter come sniffing around like a dog after the last slice of bacon. Martin didn’t like that he was spending so much time with Peter (and  _ only _ Peter) that the man was starting to get predictable. 

“ And while I am afraid that we can’t quite afford for you to take too much time off, I can help you with your other problem.” Tired blue eyes peeked up from under messy ginger hair, a curious eyebrow raised.

“I have a car, a few actually, it wouldn’t be a problem for you to use one for the trip.”

That… that was really kind of him. It would sort out transport and if his mother started complaining about the car he could say it is on loan from work.  One less thing for her to criticise about him. 

It was too good to be true and Martin knew it.

He straightened up from his slump, wincing at the sound of his back cracking as he stretched. He turned to look Peter in the eye. No matter how happy the man sounded, no matter how much he kept that constant smile on his face, Peter could never force his eyes to fake the same. An endless, emotionless, dead-eyed stare.

Honestly?

Martin had worked retail. He had met hungover teenagers who could fake politeness better than Peter. He often used his own customer service smile on Peter when the man was in one of his chatty moods.

“Ok. What do you want?” Martin glared and he felt a simmering rage attempt to crawl out of him when Peter had the sheer _audacity_ to look affronted. 

“Why would I want anything? In fact, the only thing I can think of that I want is to help you, Martin.” Martin waited for the catch, “It looks like such a long journey as well, I was even thinking that maybe I could come with you, drive you back when its all over.”

Martin could not believe that Peter thought this was subtle.

“So you don’t want anything for this very kind offer. You’re not coming, perhaps, so that you can feed on my family, the ones who are grieving” Martin may have strained something in his attempt not to roll his eyes as Peter lit up with a grin.

“I hadn’t thought about it, but that is very nice of you to offer Martin, thank you!”

He hadn’t offered.

Martin knew that if Peter had asked this months ago, back when Tim was alive and Jon wasn’t as-good-as-dead,  the Martin  of before would never have accepted it. 

But he wasn’t the same person any longer and the long-repressed resentment at them all leaving him to care for his sick and bitter mother left him uncaring if Peter vanished a few of them into the Lonely. 

He let out another tired sigh.

“Sure Peter, but you will be sharing the car with my mother and good luck getting anything off her. Wait, no, I take that back, that wasn’t a bet Peter, please don’t actually try to feed off my mother.”

Martin didn’t like the considering look that flashed across Peter’s face before he shrugged.

“Of course Martin, if that’s what you want.”

Martin opened his mouth to confirm some details but between that moment and the next, Peter had vanished in a swirl of fog.

  
  


Two weeks later found Martin bundled up in a thick woollen coat that,  if questioned, he would deny using Peter’s card to purchase.  His hands were shoved deep into its pockets as he waited for Peter to pick him up, fog drifting around his ankles as the other Institute employees ignored him. 

Martin wasn’t a car guy. He just wasn’t all that interested. 

He could still tell that the car that pulled up in front of him cost more than every paycheck he had ever gotten and he immediately felt less bad about the coat. 

Peter looked cheerful as Martin slipped into the car,  humming a quiet tune as he pulled away. 

  
  


The trip was quiet. Neither of them one for chatting and Martin found it quite pleasant to tell the truth.  A comfortable silence.  His good mood faded as they got close to his mother’s nursing home. 

He didn’t know if Peter noticed, he almost hoped he didn’t, but the older man  suddenly began talking about his ship. Martin had never asked Peter about the Tundra, he had never particularly cared about Peter’s murder ship, but that didn’t seem to stop him. 

He wondered if forcing people to be in conversations they would do anything to leave was an aspect of the Forsaken, if so, Peter was very good at it. 

Peter’s stream of information did what Martin guesses it was meant to do. It distracted him from the looming weight of his mother, to the point that he almost forgot why Peter parked outside the old building. An expectant eyebrow raise from Peter as he sat there caused Martin to scramble out of the soft leather seats. 

His mother was waiting  by the entrance and he hadn’t even fully walked up to her before she started complaining. He couldn’t even hear the start of her rant but a childhood of experience had attuned him to that specific tone of voice. 

“-’re late as usual. Can never be on time for anything you useless boy. Leaving me waiting here, it is cold you know? Or maybe you don’t I see you haven’t lost any weight since last I saw you. Lazy, useless brat.” He was in his 30’s. No one he knew called him ‘boy’ or ‘brat’ anymore. 

Well…

He glanced at the car. 

Almost no one. 

Peter was awfully fond of calling him ‘lad’ but then again Martin was pretty sure he just did that to irritate him. Working for Peter had given Martin an unfortunately useful ability, hours upon hours of listening to pointless bullshit had taught Martin to just tune the man out and it turns out that it was a transferable skill.  He faded his mother’s rant into the back of his mind as he lead her towards the car. He opened the back door for her and she slapped him on the arm. 

“I don’t want to be stuffed in the back like a bag of groceries. I will go up front.” He peeked through the open door and caught Peter’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. 

“Yes mum.” 

She squawked as she saw Peter in the driver’s seat. 

“Who the hell is this!”

“Mum, this… um… this is”

“Peter Lukas ma’am. Your wonderful son is my assistant. I agreed to give him a lift. Don’t want my best worker to drive tired!” 

His mother gave Peter a long look that grew into a sneer. 

Oh no. 

This was worse than Martin could have ever guessed. 

He had not even begun to consider the implications of him going to a funeral with an obviously rich older man who was also his boss. Martin considered calling this whole thing off, he didn’t know if he could cope if Peter murdered his mother if she called Peter something unfortunate.  Even if she didn’t, the amused grin on Peter’s face told him that he was never going to hear the end of this. 

“Joan Blackwood. I guess he never could get anything done on his own merit, _this_ doesn’t surprise me. Alright, if I have to I suppose this will do.”

She clambered into the car and Martin had to manually take a few breaths before he slid into the back seat. 

Another quiet drive. This was was distinctly less comfortable. 

Despite Martin’s worries, Peter didn’t do anything and the rest of the trip was uneventful.  The whole sordid this was fine in the end. The funeral quiet, Peter fed on the assembled crowd and only a handful vanished into the sudden and unexpected fog. They even managed to get all the way back to the nursing home before it all fell apart. 

Peter’s excuse, when  questioned further back at the Institute, was that he was bored. 

Martin wondered if Elias had any tips for bashing a man’s skull in with a blunt object. 

He had helped his mother out of the car and she had started up on her alphabetised list of all of the things she hated about him, when he felt the cold, solid weight of Peter standing behind him. Peter had a faint frown on his face, a look that filled Martin with dread. 

“Excuse me. But those are not kind things to say to someone who came all this way to help you. And most of the things you are saying are simply not true. Martin is a good assistant, considerate, intelligent and hard-working” 

Peter had never said anything this nice to Martin in the entire time they had known each other, it was making him a little uncomfortable. 

“Hard-working? Is that what you call it? Look I have no interest in his sex life but you two disgust me” 

Martin watched a cloud drift over Peter’s face as the older man finally realised what his mother thought the situation was. His mother did not stop talking and had caught sight of Peter’s wedding ring. 

“I wonder what your poor wife thinks of this. Men. Always running off with something younger, pathetic.” A gleam of greed in her eyes as she considered how rich Peter must be to have the car he was driving. 

“Or the press for that matter. I am sure they might be interested in someone of your status running around with a man half your age” How old did his mother think he was? Or Peter for that matter?

“Martin, get in the car we’re going. My husband, if he cared about such things Joan, might be a little upset if he found out I was in such a relationship with Martin. But we are not and even if we were he would struggle to do anything seeing as he is in prison for multiple counts of murder, a crime that your son revealed to the police.” Peter stepped forward, his sheer bulk casting a shadow over his mother. Martin could only just hear his words through the thick glass of the car window. 

“The fact he wants anything to do with you is a miracle. The fact that anyone in the world wants anything to do with you is a mystery. You think the nurses in there care for you more than the son you hate? I hope you like the quiet ma’am because you are going to die alone and not a soul is going to care.” His mother opened her mouth but Peter just talked straight over her, his voice still eerily cheerful despite the glare he was shooting her. 

“Don’t call Martin again, don’t pick up his calls, don’t even think of him or I will make sure you know what it is like to feel truly lonely. He doesn’t need you.”

Peter didn’t wait for a response, just got in the car and started the engine, pulling away as his mother stood in the driveway of the nursing home. 

  
  


They didn’t say a word, letting the silence fester between them. 

“Why did you do that? I know you don’t even mean half of what you said”

“I can’t have my assistant thinking all that nonsense Martin! You are very important, you remember our bet?” Martin nodded, confused. 

“You are going to save the world Martin, and you don’t need her making you doubt yourself. And...” 

  
  


“...I think maybe she deserves to feel lonely for once”

  
  


  
  


Martin back at the Institute: Wait a minute… Did you say that just so you could feed on my mother?

Peter, already tired from all this socialising: Yes! It is called multitasking I read about it in one of Elias’ books. 

**Author's Note:**

> Jonny committed a crime by not having Peter call Martin “Lad”


End file.
